[Clinical effectiveness of antimeasles vaccine in Canarias. A case-control study]. / Eficacia clínica de la vacuna antisarampionosa en Canarias. Un estudio caso-control.

During 1988 an outbreak of measles occurred in Gran Canaria Island. Since a certain number of cases occurred in vaccinated children, a case control study of the efficacy of measles vaccine was carried out. Fourty six cases of children aged from 15 months to 7 years were studied together with 46 age, sex, and neighbourhood matched controls. The studied cases were children who came to the Pediatric Emergency Room of the Hospital Materno-Infantil, Las Palmas, and were diagnosed of measles from the 23rd February 1988 to the 30th June 1988. The control group was formed by the first child that came to this Emergency Room right after each of the children of the measles group presenting traumatological or surgical pathology and that could be properly matched. Both measles and control children were included in the study without information about their vaccination status. In this population, the clinical efficacy of measles vaccine, corrected in order to calculate that corresponding to a cohort study given the similarity of excess reasons in the matched and not matched 2 by 2 tables, was 76.0% (confidence interval 95%: 30.4% to 85.4%). The clinical efficacy calculated by us is somewhat inferior to the 90% usually reported in the literature, nevertheless, the vaccine still has a clear, statistically significant protective effect. We believe that this diminished efficacy could be due, amongst other reasons, to a break in the cooling system or to a smaller seroconversion index in our subtropical climate. We suggest this latter aspect should be studied in detail.

[Chronic pathology in 2 pediatric clinics]. / Estudio de la patología crónica en dos consultas de pediatría.

An attempt was made to evaluate the frequency of the different diseases in a given population and health area so as to establish health policy programs. A method of comparison of results was used for two pediatric clinics in two health centers, and the frequency of the different chronic diseases in the overall children population attending both centers (asthma, urinary tract infections, gastroesophageal reflux, febrile seizures, psychomotor retardation and heart diseases) was evaluated. The results of the study were similar for both clinics and also to those by other authors of comparable assessments, except for gastroesophageal reflux. Asthma and urinary tract infection had frequencies ranging from 4.3 to 5% and from 4.15 to 5%, respectively. It should also be remarked that 29% of children with esophageal reflux in our sample had episodes of urinary tract infection.